Whoever said “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” must have had DEI in mind. After all, who could possibly be against diversity, equity or inclusion as defined literally? The answer is, of course, no one. However, the DEI movement has morphed into a cottage industry that promotes discrimination and denigrates the very minority groups it purports to help.
Corporations, academia, government – even the military have all jumped on the DEI bandwagon. DEI department heads earning six-figure salaries, with expense accounts and staffs have become fixtures in the organizational charts of many of these entities. While it is difficult to assess the return on investment (ROI) on the significant cost resulting from these recent additions to the organizational structure, one thing is certain – hiring, productivity, and daily operation have all felt its noticeable impact.
One would think that DEI would simply have as its goal “opportunity for all” to ensure that everyone, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, etc. is allowed to compete fairly for aplace,whatevertheorganizationorrolemaybe. Instead,justtheoppositehashappened. Hiring on a person’s merits has been replaced by a convoluted quota system that results in bean-counting applicants based on just about everything except ability and skills. In fact, what you look like or where you come from may be the deciding factor in being included.
Heather MacDonald of the Manhattan Institute and economist Thomas Sowell of the Hoover Institute have both written extensively about the damage DEI is doing to just about every facet of our society. In the world of DEI, words like merit, qualifications, skills, achievement, standards, and colorblind, to name a few, are deemed racist and discriminatory. This is not only absurd, but also insulting and denigratory towards all minority groups. The message sent is that achievement for certain groups can only be had through hard quotas using exclusionary criteria that actually discriminates on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, etc. while dismissing rightful consideration of any level of competency, skill sets, experience, or proven ability.
If America is to retain its place as the premier nation on earth, we cannot abandon the meritocracy model that got us here and made us the envy of the world over. We must make sure that nothing surpasses merit and ability in any aspect of our world. When going into surgery, boarding a plane, or preparing a balance sheet, you want the most qualified surgeon, pilot, or accountant, not the one who simply checked a DEI box. Conversely, to say certain groups do not have the ability to compete without a DEI-infused quota to ensure their success is the height of racism and should be denounced wherever it occurs.
Thankfully, the tide may be turning. Jon Lindseth, a former trustee, and major donor to Cornell University said in a letter to the university that “DEI has led to moral ‘rot’ at the university and ‘dishonors’ the principles of free speech.” Geophysicist Dorian Abbot and Economist Ivan Marinovic stated, “DEI violates ethical and legal principles of equality, compromisesuniversities’missionandunderminesthepublic’strust.” EvenactorAntonio Sabato, Jr. has weighed in stating that DEI-inspired diversity standards are “destroying the Oscars.”
Rather than diminished standards and discriminatory policies put in place to force some artificial level of DEI, why not ensure that opportunity is open to everyone and then aggressively address the root causes of why some demographics may be underrepresented? Ignoring the real problem hurts everyone – those who are thrust into positions without qualifications, those skilled individuals who lose out because they could not check the appropriate box and most importantly, society as a whole.
